Industry to maintain efficiency push as prices approach $1 per litre.

BMW: cheap petrol won't affect hybrid development

The crashing cost of fuel might make customers think twice about buying a hybrid vehicle, but it will not stop car companies from racing to make the most efficient cars possible.

That's the thinking from BMW board member for marketing and sales, Ian Robertson, who rebuffed suggestions that cheap fuel could discourage manufacturers from investing in green technology.

The price of benchmark crude oil has crashed by nearly 60 per cent since June 2014, and metropolitan petrol prices in Australia could drop below $1 per litre as a result of oversupply and an international price war.

Speaking at the 2015 Detroit motor show, Robertson said the price of fuel would not affect BMW's long-term strategy.

"You should not be distracted from a strategic direction as an industry and where we as a company are going by an oil price that no one expected, even a couple of months ago, and no one can tell me it's not going to move in another direction over a period of time," he says.

"We have to separate what might happen with the oil price at a particular time with the strategic direction of where we are going as a company, and where all of the legislation is going as an industry.

"From that point of view, yes there might be a buyer who decides to change their mind on something, but at the end of the day we know the miles per gallon has to improve, we know the CO2 has to come down and we know that zero emissions are going to play an increasing role in the industry, and that's not about to change."

BMW is set to release the production version of its plug-in hybrid X5 SUV this year, a machine that will be followed by other hybrid variants throughout the entire BMW range.

"Electric cars are playing a more important role, we've got plug-in hybrids coming in a range of vehicles – the first one here will be the X5... It will have a C02 rating to make small cars look on with envy," he says.

"I think low oil prices, they might make a difference in the market month by month but not strategically where we're heading."

The marketing boss says that BMW will continue to focus on plug-in hybrid and electric vehicle technology. The brand is unlikely to follow technical partner Toyota to market with a fuel-cell electric vehicle any time soon.

"We view fuel cell technology as one of the technologies for the future, one of a potential set of solutions, we know it works, we know the performance of the cars," he says.

"But we equally know that the production of hydrogen and the logistics of supplying it are quite challenging – there is no infrastructure around the world.

"Our relationship with Toyota is a very good one, we have developed some good ideas and some good technologies there, and we have some cars that are capable of being run as a fuel cell, but there is still the challenge of hydrogen in the marketplace.

"At the moment, whilst we are very keen on developing the ideas and the technologies behind it, we know that it's only small series vehicles that are likely to run on it for the time being."